The invention concerns the technical sector of automatic machines for packing articles, such as pills, tablets and the like, into containers, such as vials or jars, or boxes or the like.
Known machines of this type are used in the pharmaceutical industry, while other less sophisticated machines are used mainly for foodstuffs or confectionery.
For uses in the pharmaceutical industry a predetermined number of articles, counted with absolute precision, must be inserted inside the container, while for other uses it can suffice to guarantee a minimum number or weight.
According to a relatively widespread construction design scheme for the abovementioned machines, known as counters, there is a first operating line where the containers are gripped and transferred to a filling station, into which a second line also flows, supplying the articles to the insertion organs which insert the articles into the containers, with all the foregoing taking place in observance of predetermined control protocols concerning the number and/or overall weight of the articles inserted into the container.
Clearly the greatest differences between one machine and another, apart from the solutions adopted for transporting the various types of container, concern the conformation of the insertion organs and the ways according to which the insertion organs operate.
Based on specific requirements, therefore, the insertion organs will be obtained with more or less ingenious and/or complex technical solutions; in the pharmaceutical sector, where counting must be absolutely precise, recourse must necessarily be made to solutions which, although complex and often expensive, are capable of fulfilling the required conditions.
To minimize errors during counting, the articles must be separated one by one, directed towards for example mechanical, electromechanical or optical counting means, and finally inserted into the containers; alternatively, after counting they can be batched before being inserted into the container.
In some types of machine separating organs are obtained with formatted elements, which have to be replaced whenever the article being handled changes; when shape, rather than the dimensions of the article vary, the functioning of the abovementioned organs may be impaired, or be totally incompatible with the article.
A further drawback, which can arise with the above-described mode of operation, concerns the damage that certain highly fragile articles may undergo during the manipulation to which they are subjected in the separation, counting and batching stages.